


so here are your wings, my baby

by SleepyBanshee



Category: Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Brief mentions of Karolina and Nico, F/M, Human AU, Soulmate AU, THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, Total Fluff, there's cussing and cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 14:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18345929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyBanshee/pseuds/SleepyBanshee
Summary: Soulmate/Soulmark AU.





	so here are your wings, my baby

For the most part, Gert was ambivalent about her soulmark. 

Admittedly she hadn’t always felt that way. In high school, as an outcast, she spent hours thinking about the soulmate she had somewhere in the world who would meet her and make her feel like she finally belonged. Honestly, it was sixteen-year-old horseshit. At 24, Gert was well aware that another person can’t make you whole. That’s just not how the world worked, even a world with soulmates. 

As she grew up and left for college, she began to see the flaws of soulmarks. As a sophomore at undergrad, she decided to volunteer at the community sexual assault crisis center. It was a great opportunity to get even more training and make a difference in the everyday world rather than solely in her women’s and gender studies classes. This was the first time Gert realized that soulmarks were not the end all be all. 

Because she worked with women, who had found their soulmate. Their soulmark matching on another person. And their soulmate? Well, they had no problem sexually assaulting their mated partners. So, yeah, Gert had a crash course at nineteen that soulmates and soulmarks could cause as many problems as the movies show them solving them. 

Then at twenty, Gert kisses a girl. It was great and soft, and she liked it. She started dating, Ellie, for about two months before they felt comfortable to talk about soulmarks. Soulmarks were ubiquitous in their culture, but they were still private, an aspect of your heart literally on your skin for all to see. It was in this conversation that Gert found out many of Ellie’s LGBTQ+ friends had opposite sex/gender soulmates. 

In fact, same-sex/gender soulmates were rare. Gert had absolutely gone down the rabbit hole that is the internet to see how true this was. Because this was truly heteronormative bullshit to the fullest. Honestly, she’s kind of surprised she never thought about it as a teenager. But then again, Gert’s feminism has grown and evolved significantly since her somewhat off-putting feminism as a teenager. 

According to Ellie, the soul marks tend to lead them towards best friends, but even so, the idea of soulmarks only going towards heterosexual couples really pissed Gert off. Like her job in the world was to meet a guy, fall head over heels, and then produce perfect little babies to serve a capitalistic society? Yeah right. Gert had better things to do. 

So, really, Gert was ambivalent about her soulmark. She had seen soulmarks that led to lasting and wonderful relationships. But she had seen the other side of soulmarks as well. The ones that Hollywood and news sources liked to hide under the rug. So, her life was not going to be defined by the intricate dinosaur mark she had spanning her left shoulder going down her back. The black lined dinosaur was woven in with lace patterns and floral designs. She loved it, truth be told. At the very least her skin was marked in an incredibly beautiful way. She had seen some, uh, questionable marks over the years and it made her so much for thankful for the intricacy and beauty of her own. 

Currently, Gert was happy. She had a job at a local consulting firm in Los Angeles that gave workshops and consulted to perform qualitative studies on diversity and inclusion for businesses and organizations. Basically, Gert got to tell companies that they needed to get their shit together and got paid for it. She lived about twenty-five minutes from Molly, who was finishing up her undergrad at USC. She saw Molly often. 

She had a good group of friends too. Nico, who she met her first week in LA while finding a niche feminist makeup store downtown. They were an unlikely pair but hit it off. With Nico came Karolina, her girlfriend, soon to be fiance (Gert just had a feeling). Nico also came with her best friend, Alex. It was a small, but solid group. Molly fit seamlessly when she flitted in and out, and Karolina seemed to have a constant ability to meet and care about anyone new to the area, so Gert had a good handful of casual friends she could hang with too. Again, Gert was happy. 

And then, puppy dog Karolina brought one Chase Stein to Wednesday trivia night at their favorite queer bar, and suddenly Gert had a big fucking crush on a massively hot preppy white guy. Chase was outgoing and ridiculous and incredibly smart, which she had found out during trivia night. He, like Karolina, could talk to anyone he was around and make them feel included and welcome. He was also awkward in the most endearing way. And Gert hated that every time their eyes caught across the table when Alex and Nico got in a long-drawn-out argument about an answer to a trivia question her heart pounded faster and she could feel her blush spreading on her cheeks. 

Gert planned on asking him out, really she did. But, she chickened out that first night at trivia, and suddenly, Chase was everywhere. He had been adopted into her core group seamlessly. Alex loved playing video games with him, Nico and Chase would do tech experiments and talk about ridiculous sci-fi type science Gert would never understand (or want to for that matter), and he helped Karolina convince the group of shut-ins, Nico, Gert, and Alex, to get their asses up and go out and explore. He was the mom of the group. So much so, that the first time Molly came into town, she was getting PB&Js cut into diagonals from Chase. Just the other day, Molly remarked that she forgot Chase hadn’t been embedded in the group from its inception. 

At three months, Chase and Gert had become close, as had everyone. They had soft talks about feelings before they went to sleep, watched movies, read books and talked about them. They took care of each other. And Gert, fiery, determined Gert, was too chickenshit to upset the delicate balance her and her friends had with Chase. 

Gert pined. It was sad, and she hated it. At times, she thought maybe Chase did like her as more than a friend. She could feel his eyes on her a beat too long when they went dancing, his hand brushing hers while walking together, the small smiles and intense eye contact when they were alone. She loved him, and she hoped more than anything that he loved her, but neither of them made any attempt to find out the other’s feelings. 

If Gert was being honest she had studiously avoided or immediately changed the subject anytime soulmarks were brought up around Chase. Because she couldn’t decide what was worse: to have the same one as him and it burn to the ground like so many others, or for Chase to have a mark that was starkly different from her own. Either way, Gert was happy to pretend that, for a little while, soulmarks were not a thing in her world. Gert had chosen who she was in love with at the moment, and soulmarks be damned. 

And then Chase got hurt. 

Not badly, thank god. But Chase had been playing a pick-up basketball with some friends and took a hard fall to the ground. His shirt had torn a bit, and when Chase arrived at her door sheepishly explaining what happened, Gert could see his shirt sticking to the blood from the wound. After the initial panic subsided, Gert grabbed him by the arm and took him to her small bathroom attached to her bedroom. She made him sit on the lid of the toilet while she pulled out her peroxide, anti-bacterial gel, bandaids, and cotton rounds. 

“You’re a mess,” Gert concluded looking at the dirt on his cheek and the torn shirt. 

“A bit, yeah,” Chase admittedly still sheepish at turning up bleeding from a pick-up basketball game from the guys at work. 

“Take off your shit,” Gert proclaims as she opens the peroxide. Chase does as he is told carefully pulling off his shirt making sure to place it in the tub, where the blood could be washed out more easily. 

Gert turned back ready to inspect his wound when her breath stopped. 

There on the right side of Chase’s body was an intricate dinosaur with lace and flowers woven with it. A soulmark that matched hers exactly. Only, unlike Gert’s, Chase’s soulmark had a massive zig-zagged scar running right down the middle of his mark making the mark seem much more gruesome than her own. 

Gert tried to form words. She tried to focus on her task and look at his wound, but all she kept thinking was that he was hers, and something had happened to him where he was left with a massive scar right through their matching hearts. 

Her fingers, without her notice, began to move towards the mark and scar. Chase caught her hand before she could touch the rough and gnarly scar. Gert looked up at him an unreadable expression in his eyes. 

“You okay, Gert?” He finally asked. Her fingers, which he still held gently were shaking ever so slightly. Gert cleared her throat. She felt such happiness at the shared mark, but she could tell just by the scar, that Chase’s history with soulmarks was so vastly different than hers. So before she just ripped off her shirt and showed him the matching one, she had to know. 

“I’m in love with you.” She whispered, her cheeks flaming from her anxious statement. 

“What?” Chase replied looking at her more intently. 

“I am stupidly in love with you. Pretty much the second you answered a complex chemistry trivia question and then chest-bumped with Karolina when you got it right.” Gert rambled still standing between his legs with one hand in his and the other hand holding a cotton round with hydrogen peroxide on it. She was looking at their joined hands, hoping to commit it to memory just in case this never happened again. 

But then she felt fingers gliding up her neck to her cheek, making her lift her head and look into Chase’s eyes. 

“Yeah?” He asked a smile beginning to bloom on his face. 

“Yeah,” Gert confirmed a small smile forming on her own. 

“I’m in love with you too, Gert,” Chase told her a full grin breaking out and his thumb rubbing soothingly on her cheek where his hand still rested. “Pretty much the second you verbally eviscerated a massive dudebro at a club before kneeing him in the groin.” Chase and Gert chuckling at the memory. 

Chase sat straighter ignoring the pull from his side and gently and sweetly brushed his lips against Gert’s. Gert let the cotton round drop and grasped his head with both of her hands, deepening the kiss. The stayed there for a few moments feeling each other out for the first time — the softness of his lips, the firm grasp on her cheek, the feel of his hair. Gert pulled away ever so slightly and put her forehead against his, smiling before opening her eyes to look at him. 

“It was my awesome body, right?” Chase teased suddenly. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Gert asked still trying to regain her grasp of reality, half convinced this was a very very good dream she never wanted to leave. 

“You saw me without my shirt on, and you suddenly had to have me.” Chase continued to tease Gert, who finally felt as if a weight had been lifted off of her. He loved her, she thought, and so she decided she was happy to play along. 

“100%. You’re really hot.” Gert deadpanned and gestured to his body. His laugh was loud and happy, and Gert joined in laughing as well. 

“Your soulmark…” Gert trailed off, unsure how to continue, “your scar.” Gert finished. 

Chase visibly swallowed and shook his head slightly. “Can that story wait a bit? I want this to be a happy moment.” Chase told her, still leaning against her forehead. 

“Of course,” Gert told him but felt she needed to show him her own soulmark. 

“I want you to know that I’ve felt this way for months. I’ve wanted you for months.” Gert repeated earnestly. 

“Me too,” Chase confirmed drawing her closer and gently kissing her lips before giving each cheek a kiss as well. 

Gert drew back and lifted the sweatshirt over her head. Chase’s brows furrowed as she started taking off her shirt as well. 

“We don’t have to do this now, Gert, if you don’t want. We can talk about --.” Chase cut himself off with a quick intake of air as Gert’s shirt hit the floor and she turned away from him, letting him see the massive dinosaur trailing down her shoulder and back, exactly the same as Chase’s mark on his chest and side. Gert’s arms covered her now bare breasts while she stood with her back to him and she held her breath waiting for Chase to say something. 

The silence suddenly felt stifling, and Gert felt her mind begin to conjure all of the ways that this was bad for Chase. The ways that he wouldn’t want her anymore. And then, after a few more silent beats, she felt a gentle finger trailing down her dinosaur. Goosebumps erupted on her skin as his finger so very carefully traced her soulmark. She felt the touch down to her toes. No other touch had felt so loving and intimate before. 

“Wow,” Gert finally heard Chase breathe out. Gert cleared her throat. 

“This doesn’t have to mean anything.” Gert began to ramble. “I mean, I know that soulmarks aren’t always positive and people abuse their soulmates all the time and honestly they are so heteronormative, like, come on, why is it only opposite gender/sex people get matched. It’s a totally flawed system, and while I love the mark, I don’t think it made me love you. You did that, Chase. We can pretend it doesn’t---” 

The next words get cut off as Chase stood and turned Gert to face him before enveloping her in a massive hug. Her arms which were still covering her chest and caught between their bodies fell to her sides, and she slowly hugged him back. Feeling her skin on his. 

“I’m so happy I’m yours.” Chase finally got out, and Gert felt a kiss on the top of her head. Her eyes closed in relief. 

“Me too,” she told him, talking into his chest before remembering that he was currently bleeding and dirty from earlier. She gently pushed him off. He moved immediately and looked in confusion down at Gert. 

“Your side. Let me clean it up.” Gert told him as she bent for her tank top she had slipped off earlier and put it back on. She grabbed another cotton round and started to clean up his side. 

She could feel his eyes on her the entire time, but both were content to just be in the moment silent and together. Gert finished dressing Chase wounds. Every time she caught his eyes, the heat and intensity would catch her off guard. She couldn’t believe that he was hers. 

She washed her hands and leaned against the bathroom doorway to watch Chase do the same and attempt to wipe some of the dirt off of this face and arm. His cheek red from rubbing with his soapy fingers. Gert threw him a hand towel from her place against the door frame. Chase finished drying his hands, arm, and cheek and looked over at Gert, a lazy smile forming on his face. 

“What now?” He asked her. Gert, for her part, felt that she showed considerable restraint at not immediately making him strip so she could finally get his body under hers. She had loved his mind for over three months, and now she wanted to feel his sturdy warmth beneath her fingertips. Instead, Gert looked behind her at her bedroom. 

Before Chase had knocked on her door, she was just getting into bed to take a nap. Molly had asked for help on an English paper last night that was due today, and so Gert had stayed up late editing it and calming Molly down that, no, she was not going to fail. 

“Nap?” Gert asked. She knew they needed to talk. They had...a lot to talk about. But she also knew that there would be time for that. That Chase, just as he had with their friend group, would entangle himself in almost every aspect of her life and Gert was so okay with that. She tilted her head waiting for a reply. 

“After all of this, you want to nap? Do I bore you that much?” Chase questioned with a mock hand to his heart as if she had wounded him greatly. Gert thought if she should answer his teasing with her own sharp comment. They both knew that Gert could outtalk anyone. But instead, she opted for a rare moment of pure vulnerability. Despite being fiery and determined Gert, she rarely let walls down enough to allow for vulnerability. Anxiety didn’t really allow for that to happen. Yet, despite the nerves, Gert decided that she could begin to slowly chip away at the barrier she had up almost twenty-four/seven. 

“I really just want you to hold me.” She told him gaze wavering slightly. Chase took a step closer and placed a kiss to her forehead. Grabbing one of her hands as he did so and slowly led her out of the bathroom. 

Gert watched as Chase took off his shorts and was left in nothing but boxer briefs and socks and pulled Gert with him as he made his way towards her bed. 

He flopped onto her bed making her fondly roll her eyes, and she slowly pushed her sweatpants down her legs feeling the heat of his gaze as she did. Now, left in her loose tank top and underwear she climbed into the bed after him. He curled around her as if his body was specifically formed to be Gert Yorkes’ big spoon. One of his armed propped his head up on the pillow, and the other fit tightly across her stomach and chest. They breathed together, and soon Gert slowly began to drift off. She felt a kiss to her head and a whispered voice before she fell asleep: 

“Okay, but next time I get to be the little spoon.”

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are mine! 
> 
> I love these two dorks. 
> 
> Song title from the fantastic Seinabo Sey's I Love You. 
> 
> -SleepyBanshee


End file.
